Prison labour taking private sector jobs

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http://www.alternet.org/story/150777/de ... paging=off

Prison labour may be helping to reduce demand for labour in the general economy.

The unincarcerated should be able to enjoy more leisure. If the prison labourers are only getting a few cents per hour, then some of the money saved should be redistributed to free people whose labour is no longer needed in the free economy.

Then, free people will be able to buy things manufactured by prison slaves.

Your primary source is SEIU, not exactly a non-partisan institution. My Wiki-Fu is not convinced.



Yeah, sure, let's give the money to individuals who do *not* contribute to the economy rather than the ones who do.

Perhaps the money saved should go to the prisoners instead, as they are the ones doing actual *work*.

Glad we agree.



If we were to pay the prisoners the free-market wage, then prison unemployment would end up being similar to unemployment among free people.

I am pretty sure that the average employer would consider a convict a less valuable employee than a free person, ceteris paribus. In other words, a similar wage could eliminate employment opportunities for convicts and eliminate the benefits from convicts having an attachment to the labour market. My mileage might vary, though.

Proof of what? That paying people better increases demand in the economy or the existence of the NAIRU doctrine for creating and maintaining a Reserve Army of Labour for the purpose of suppressing wages?

NAIRU... the Reserve Army of Labour...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEWcTEfFurA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdZp5iw-UEo[/youtube]

BS.

What about those videos. The person who interviewed Thatcher described the NAIRU theory very well as did Alan Budd, one of her advisers, in the other video.

BS!

[Begin of rant]Either support your claim by peer-reviewed science (Hint: Anything less than a meta-review will be ignored, so no f****** cherry picking) or shut the f*** up and stop wasting the time of people more educated in the field of economics than you are.[/End of rant]

Under the ceteris paribus assumption, the employer would consider the convict of equal value to a free employee. Otherwise, ceteris ain't paribus.

You are good debater, I will admit that... And in retrospect, you were the winner of that particular discussion. Damn.

My point, though, was that convicts cannot realistically expect to be as valuable workers as free citizens...

You just can't handle the truth. Not only is what I say true, it actually makes sense if you give it some thought. And don't tell me that Alan Budd was just anyone, or that the interviewer there did not perfectly describe Milton Friedman's theory and notice how it matches perfectly what Budd said. Face it, the facts have a left wing bias! The usual right wingers (Bevan had a nice expression for them) by the way said the sky would fall in when the UK adopted a minimum wage under Blair and the economy did better and this supposed unemployment that was to result from this horrible distortion of the free market never came to pass, in fact unemployment declined. And yes, the lower paid have a higher marginal propensity to consume, their higher wages go straight back into the economy. This could be a problem if there is significant inflation, perhaps, but there is not. There is plenty of slack.

BS. (If you keep repeating your incoherent rants, then I will keep repeating my one liner responses). Either get to the point, or stop wasting pixels.

To some employers, convicts provide higher value, given the artificially low wage, plus the fact that they can't quit. Also, they won't be asking for retirement or medical benefits.

All right, say I'm a boss and I'm in the market for workers and I want to keep costs down in order that my profits are higher. What's optimal for me; to have low unemployment and having a seller's market, so I have to be far less choosy, have to pay more, have to train, have to send a bus perhaps for workers, or other ways to lure them to my business, or would I prefer a high unemployment situation where it's a buyer's market where I can choose to pay people far less, force them commute 3 hours on their own to my workplace, have enough choice of candidates so I can choose people who believe in my politics, can account for every moment of their last ten years to my satisfaction, passed a battery of tests that I provide, and I don't have to pay a penny for training? Tell me, if I was a boss, what would I prefer; a low unemployment situation or a high unemployment situation? This is a very simple question with a very clear answer and the answer proves that yes, there are powerful people out there who want unemployment and work hard to make sure there is unemployment. And the NAIRU theory is part of the justification for creating a Reserve Army of Labour. There is nothing at all incoherent about this very simple and obvious fact! The sooner people realise this and stop being in denial about this truth the easier it would be for people to find a real solution to the problems we face today with unemployment.

You conveniently left out the fact that they are convicts. They are in prison for a reason, whether it is dishonesty, impulsiveness, callous disregard for the safety of others, blatant stupidity, being downright evil or a variety of other reasons which would have a detrimental impact on their value in the workplace.

Potential Snide Remark Deflecting Addendum: Assuming, of course, that the justice system works, and people are not just locked up because of judicial incompetence. But that is an entirely different discussion.

Post Main Subject Epiphany: ... which is another reason why raising the minimum wage can hurt the economy. Individuals with a prison record, whose workplace value ceteris paribus will be lower than those without a prison record, would be at greater risk of having their labour value falling below the minimum wage. When this happens, the only gainful employment left for them is to continue with crime.

In a country like the US - where so many people are sent to prison (both in absolute and relative terms) - this could spell (even more) disaster.